On July 4, 2012, Gerald Guralnik was in a packed room at CERN savoring the discovery of the Higgs boson, which confirmed a theory he proposed nearly 50 years ago.

No such celebration occurred Oct. 8. Guralnik was home when he learned online that physicists François Englert and Peter Higgs had won the Nobel Prize in physics for formulating the same theory. “I’m happy for Englert and Higgs, but it does sting a little bit,” he says. “Physicists are only human.”

I interviewed Higgs, who has just won the Nobel Prize for his prediction of the subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson, only briefly. It was during a coffee-break conversation after a talk he gave in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 2001. And I took his picture.

In his talk, describing the events that led to the prediction of his boson, he provided an enlightening case study about how science really works. As with so many good ideas in science, Higgs had trouble getting his paper published.

The 1964 prediction of the Higgs boson, which was finally confirmed last year, has won the Nobel Prize in physics.

By identifying the Higgs particle, physicists confirmed the existence of a field that permeates the cosmos and gives mass to certain elementary particles that make up stars, planets and people. The discovery also completed the standard model, which describes the universe's particles and forces, except gravity.

Research on vesicle transport has won the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology.

Three men will share the honor for their work describing how small membrane bubbles loaded with molecules get sorted to the correct part of the cell. Shuttling of vesicles is necessary to move resources around cells. Determining the machinery involved in such transport and how it is controlled has led to a better understanding of brain signaling, hormone release and immune system function.